Monday, April 30, 2007

After saving a coworker/buddy by relaying him a crazy rescue plan, Goro is selected as a crewmember of the first Japanese shuttle launch. His hopes are dashed however, when a test launch blows the engine. That launch being indefinitely delayed, Goro signs up for a Russian launch of a shuttle that has had problems in the past. Nevertheless, all goes according to plan and Goro is dropped off at the International Space Spation and becomes one of it's newest members. Still, he longs to be part of a voyage to the moon.

After surviving through a tough spell in the desert, Lostman is finally chosen to become a shuttle pilot in the ISA, though he finds himself frustrated with his slow progress. Still, he keeps impressing his superiors, while keeping tabs on Goro's progress.

I've really enjoyed this series so far. The side characters are all interesting and unique. Sure the show oozes of Testosterone, what with Goro and Lostman continously getting laid by various women and the huge amount of bravado stunts they pull, but that's part of the fun. The show is still pretty focused on Goro's path so far, having devoted only one episode to Lostman (along with brief appearances in the other episodes), so we get the idea that Goro will be our main protaganist throughout.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

So far this show is pretty boring. It's the story of a student (forget his name) who has always had a crush on his classmate Fukazawa. She is a member of the cycling club so he decides to join, but since he doesn't even know how to ride a bike, she has to go through all the basics with him.

Character development is prominent so far, yet flawed in many ways. The main character (let's call him Goro) seems inconsistent in his actions, so its hard to decide what kind of person he is. I also don't get why Fukazawa is wasting her time with such an awkward, spineless bumbling spaz. From the opening scene in episode 1, it's clear Shinozaki (I just remembered his name) later goes on to lead the Tour de France. But right now, it's hard to see what his redeeming features are.

Hopefully, this anime will profit from a change of focus when they start concentrating on the bike racing instead of the character development, which is just not working for me.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Wow! Easily my favorite show of a great anime season. It starts out with possibly the best OP ever. The show is basically a bunch of high school girls chatting and playing games and stuff. Kinda like Azumanga Daioh, except edgier. Some of the jokes are hit and miss but the pace is so fast you are kept in the flow and never lose interest. What is also great is the subject matter: manga, anime, video games - much of it initiated by the star character Konata, female otoku. For example, in episode three, both Sakigake! Cromartie High and Pani Poni Dash are referenced and ED, a different karaoke song sung by one of the girls each episode, is a rendition of the ED from FMP ~Fumoffu~ by Konata-chan. Definitely a must see in my book, so watch it! NOW!!!

Claymore is your basic generic shounen anime except with a female lead, which is definitely a plus. Anyways, Claymores are half-demon, half-human mercenaries that kill full demons by request, oh and Claymores are all girls. They are still generally feared and hated by the public though. Anyways, this chronicles Clare & her cook/sidekick, Raki. Both characters aren't very endearing(Raki is downright annoying), but the animation is nice and the fight scenes are decent so this gets a passing grade from me.

By the end of episode four, Raki somehow stops Clare from becoming a Youma(btw Youma are demons), a fate that is inevitable to Claymores, thus removing the need for her to kill herself and make this a very short series. What was that all about? If they don't explain the phenomenon, or if the reason she was able to revert is because he opened her heart or some corny trash like that, I will feel extremely disguted and will quickly be reduced to moking this series on a weekly basis. For now though, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Two mountain climbers buddies, an American nicknamed "Lostman" and a Japanese guy named Goro, have conquered all the major mountains and have now decided to become astronauts. As luck would have it, a superpotent energy source has just been discovered on the moon so the space industry is in a boom. Lostman becomes a navy pilot in the hope of becoming a shuttle pilot while Goro joins a construction company that is subsequently awarded a contract on the moon. After showing off his skills in the company for a few years, Goro is given the spot on the moon construction mission. Meanwhile, countries in the middle-east, realizing their oil will soon be obsolete, prepare to launch a last-ditch war in the Persian Gulf, which is where Lostman's unit is presently located.

This series is much better than I expected. Character development is very well done and the supporting cast is interesting in itself. So far the story has been almost exclusively centered around Goro, so I'm wondering if, now that Goro has been selected to go to space, the focus is shifted to his American counterpart, or if the show will continue to follow Goro and leave Lostman's progress a mystery until later when they meet again. I'm looking forward to future episodes!

Different countries begin to duel each other in mechas. The losing countries must help the winner as they try to conquer the world. This is all done to appease the wrath of those mechas and prevent a second apocalypse incident. Anyways, our story follows the Japanese country's 13 year old mecha pilot and his translator (She conveys the will of the mecha. I think the mecha's name is Shusano). The anime starts off with the Chinese mecha attacking Japan. Japan nevertheless wins the duel and China is forced to join Japan. Episode 3 ends with Russia, intimidated by the Japan-China alliance, challenging Japan to a duel.

So far, this show has been pretty decent. The focus has been almost entirely on the politics and history of mecha duels so far, so hopefully the character development and actual action start to pick up in the next few episodes. Kinda wondering if the pilot has a thing for the translator(who appears to be slightly older than him) or if it was just an initial infatuation.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Classic Harem setting involving a guy getting stranded onto a isolated island populated a only women. Every woman on the island is interested in getting him to marry them, and since they are insanely strong, he is at the mercy of their whims. For some reason, the women all seem to be trained as ninjas. This is pretty brainless writing in terms of a story. I'll probably only include my observations as we go along because there is no story at all here to update.

This is it for tonight, I may add a few more reviews in the next few days. If not, see you next week.

Sola is a slice of life anime that is eerily similar to Kanon (2006), a great show itself. So far the show revolves around a guy who likes to photograph the sky (lame). He meets a mysterious girl one day and eventually learns she is some kind of immortal nightwalking entity. He decides to hide her in his house (he has no parents) since some equally mysterious goatee guy is trying to kill her. Meanwhile, our lead male has a depressing little sister living in the hospital an a childhood friend who comes to cook his meals and walk to school with as the other mean characters in this show. So far, the show has been kind of disappointing. The story is moving very slowly and the characters have been kind of bland. Still, I'm expecting the show to pick up and predict it might be a must-see by the time it's over.

I'll take this opportunity to review Kanon (2006) which, for some reason, I neglected to do a month or so ago when I watched it.

Kanon (2006)- Slice of life drama. Features several story arcs featuring the lead male and different girls in a small winter town. Characters are interesting, features great dialogue and intriguing supernatural elements. A must see. 9.2/10

Heroic Age is a space mecha, though the story is a little out there. The universe is made up of different tribes, vying for universal supremecy. Unlike other shows like this, there isn't a "War is Hell" message behind the story. Every tribe is voluntarily participating in this contest of strength, answering the challenge of a superior golden tribe that has since left the galaxy. Anyway, our story follows the Human tribe which is considered the weakest of the main players. The tribe finds their God-warrior, one of the five remnants of the Hero tribe, which has the control over a mecha like creature. The other 4 heros are all part of the frontrunning silver tribe. The humans' hero, Age, has lived a life of solitude on an unoccupied planet and has no experience socializing with other humans. The first three episodes pretty much involve the crew of a human ship trying to tame his wild ways between him kicking the ass of enemy minions. By the end of episode 3, it is clear the other 4 heros are planning how to attack him so we can expect some hero vs. hero action in the coming weeks.

I can honestly say I've watched most episodes of all the series mentionned previously. After watching them, I've decided that instead of 1 blog a week updating you on every show, I would review a batch of episodes of a particular show. So every week I will review 3 episodes of 3 different shows in seperate posts. The next week, I would review 3 episodes of some other shows and so on. I put in 3 episodes per post but that figure is likely to be arbitrary based on story arcs and my mood, mostly my mood. Here goes nothing!

Monday, April 16, 2007

I've just decided I'll switch back to a more week by week review of ongoing shows I'll attempt to take on a very large number of new shows which include : Hayate no Gotoku!, Heroic Age, Hidamari Sketch!, Gigantic Formula, Lucky star, Manabi Straight!, Moonlight Mile, Nagarasete Airantou, Nodame Cantabile, Overdrive, Romeo x Juliet, Sola, Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchou Tou and the OVA Murder Princess.

Now I know what you're all thinking, "you can barely manage a post a month, you really expect us to believe you actually think you can manage a weekly review of over a dozen new shows. You must really think we're fucking guilible retards."

Well, while I'll admit straight up it will be hard for me to manage a consistent weekly post, my laziness concerning this blog should in no way be misinterpreted as a deficiency in the amount of anime I watch. I'll tell you right now, I watch more anime than you or anyone you know. There you go. Plus, some of those series are likely to be dropped or delayed by fansub groups or I might find some of those series unwatchable- which I would convey to you to hilarious results- and drop them myself. That should weed out a few of those titles and hopefully make this a manageable task.

I'll try watching some episodes of ALL those series this week and get back to you with some idea of how this project will look like next week.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Erementar Gerad- A story about humans and power-possessing beings that merge with them to form contracts. Characters range from boring to annoying and the story is so bland a spider on the wall is more entertaining. 5.0/10

Ghost hunt - A band of supernatural investigators perform a gambit of missions which include battling ghosts and destroying curses. Characters include a shrine priestess, a buddhist monk, a catholic priest and a psychic but the protagonists are a high school girl and a narcissistic genius (appropriatly nicknamed "Naru"). Lots of fun with some interesting cases. One of the best shows of last season. 9.0/10

Ouran Host Club- Solid comedy about a club of high school hosts that fall for a female student that they force to cross-dress so that she can join their club. She learns about the difficulties of the elite while they learn about instant coffee. Great cast of characters. 8.5/10

Busou Renkin- Warriors imbued with the power of alchemy battle monsters also imbued with those same powers. An above-par fighting anime that was funnier than expected on the occasions it cared to attempt some humor. 7.5/10

There will be more next week as I try to ressurrect the Top Ten. Stay tuned!

P.S. For those of you that care, I like Detroit, Dallas, Anaheim, Nashville, Buffalo, Ottawa, Tampa Bay and New York's (Rangers) chances of advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. BTW, that's hockey, for those of you forming the ignorant masses.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Though I haven't given up on this blog yet, many may believe the amount of new posts I input do not warrant me calling this an active blog. To those people I say : you are absolutely right. So lets move on.

I'm so insanely far behind in my reviews that I'll forget about the top ten for now and give you one liner reviews with a 1 to 10 rating.

Pani Poni Dash- If Azumanga Daioh and Cromartie High had a love child, on acid, this would be it. Crazy random alien fueled schoolgirl comedy that is well worth the ride, even if you don't get three quarters of the japanese pop culture references (and you won't!). 9.0/10

The Mars Daybreak- Cool protaganist character in a futuristic underwater mecha adventure. Slightly annoying supporting characters but a decent story with a cop-out ending. 8.0/10

Major (Seasons 1 through 3)- MVP baseball prodigy chooses the road less traveled amd thus creates major challenges for himself. Classic sports themed anime, you either hate it or love it. I love it. 8.0/10

Black Blood Brothers- Vampire brothers travel to a tension-filled city and try to prevent a vampire terrorist attack. Features lots of flashbacks and backstory into a way too condensed 12 episode series. Wasn't any good anyways. 6.0/10

Texhnolyze- Futuristic grim setting, with a deranged artificial-limbs imbued antihero. Mafia ruled city is faced with warring factions and backroom brokers trying to take advantage of the situation. Cool at times, lame at others. 7.5/10